e touched with the feeling of our infirmities," (Heb. iv. 15).
So it was by stooping to men, that Christ learned to understand men, and
by understanding men He was able to save men. And again, St. Paul says,
"Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the
form of God, and equal with God," yet--"made Himself of no reputation,
but took upon Him the form of a slave, and was made in the likeness of
man, and being found in fashion as a man, _humbled Himself_, and became
_obedient unto death_, even the death of the cross," (Phil. ii. 5, 9,
10).

There, my friends--there was the perfect fulfilment of the great
law--_Stoop to conquer_. There was the reward of Christ's not pleasing
Himself. Christ stooped lower than any man, and therefore He rose again
higher than all men. He did more to please men than any man; and
therefore God was better pleased with Him than with all men, and a voice
came from Heaven, saying--This Person who stoops to the lowest depths
that He may understand and help those who were in the lowest deep--this
outcast who has not where to lay His head, slandered, blasphemed, spit
on, scourged, crucified, because He will help all, and feel for all, and
preach to all; "this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased,"
(Matt. iii. 17). "The brightness of my glory,--the express image of my
person," (Heb. i. 3).

My friends, this may seem to you a strange sermon, which began by talking
of railroads and steamships, and ends by talking of the death and the
glory of the Lord Jesus Christ; and you may ask what has the end of it to
do with the beginning?

If you want to know, recollect that I began by saying that there was but
_One_ wisdom for earth or heaven, for man and for God; and that is the
wisdom which lies in _stooping to conquer_, as the Lord Jesus Christ did.
Think over that, and behave accordingly; and be sure, meanwhile, that
whenever you feel proud, and self-willed, and dictatorial, and inclined
to drive men instead of leading them, and to quarrel with them, instead
of trying to understand them and love them, and bring them round gently,
by appealing to their reason and good feeling, not to their fear of
you--then you are going not God's way, no, nor man's way either, but the
devil's way. You are going, not the way by which the Lord Jesus Christ
rose _to_ Heaven, but the way by which the devil fell _from_ Heaven, as
all self-willed proud men will fall. Proud and self-wille